


Empty Space

by Madimoo354



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Adora cant contol She Ra, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Battle, Character Death, F/F, Fighting, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Injury, Its like a worse version of Battle of Brightmoon, Major Character Injury, Minor Character Death, WOAHH you never see that in the she ra works, im hurting my favorite characters but thats ok, talking about feelings, this is like post season 2 and pre season 3, you could also read it if youve only watched season one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-25 08:07:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30086025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madimoo354/pseuds/Madimoo354
Summary: Adora can’t control her arms. Her swings are rough as she attacks the Horde soldiers. It is my duty to protect Brightmoon, she thinks to herself. Adora feels her bones ache, but she’s not stopping until the Horde is defeated and Etheria is safe.The soldiers around her remind Adora of children, kicking and throwing punches that are easily deflected off of her She-Ra form. Her sword slices through them like butter. She-Ra watches carelessly as the former soldiers’ bodies drop into the cold water and waves wash their blood away.
Relationships: Adora & Bow & Glimmer (She-Ra), Adora & Bow (She-Ra), Adora & Catra (She-Ra), Adora & Glimmer (She-Ra), Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 51





	Empty Space

**Author's Note:**

> A very special thanks to gelatinous-jellyfish for being an amazing editor!!!
> 
> This is my first time writing angst so I hope it makes you cry lol

Adora can’t control her arms. Her swings are rough as she attacks the Horde soldiers.  _ It is my duty to protect Brightmoon, she  _ thinks to herself. Adora feels her bones ache, but she’s not stopping until the Horde is defeated and Etheria is safe. 

The soldiers around her remind Adora of children, kicking and throwing punches that are easily deflected off of her She-Ra form. Her sword slices through them like butter. She-Ra watches carelessly as the former soldiers’ bodies drop into the cold water and waves wash their blood away. 

_ This isn’t right _ . She doesn’t even want to hurt the soldiers, much less kill them. Adora’s thought is interrupted when metal arms wrap around her shoulders, trying to push her down into the waters below. She easily flips the soldier over her back, knocking him into the shallows. More soldiers begin to flood in from the Whispering Woods on skiffs. She-Ra steps forward, crumpling the soldier’s chest plate under her weight as she steps on it. 

“Adora!” A shrill voice screams. 

She-Ra turns her head towards the sound and sees Glimmer, staring between the now bloody sword and her expressionless face with tears in her eyes. She-Ra watches as a soldier sneaks behind Glimmer and paralyzes her with a stun baton. 

“No!” Adora cries, but no sound comes out of her mouth. 

She-Ra turns her attention back to the soldiers; Adora can see Glimmer’s body drop to the ground out of the corner of her eye. “Please, go back!” She begs. A surge of anger courses through her veins, pushing her forward. 

The Horde is gaining more and more ground. Bots swarm the area, striking down the Brightmoon guards with their blasts. Tanks are shooting at the palace, destroying the pillars, and burning the flags that once blew in the warm breeze on sunny days. It’s only a matter of time before the entire roof caves in. 

Adora thinks of the days when she, Bow, and Glimmer would have picnics in the palace gardens and laughing and talking about their next missions. Today is far from those peaceful days, cold and cloudy, with a mist of rain that tortuously falls in her eyes. 

A cry of anger and fear comes from the ocean, ripping Adora from her memory. A giant wave throws the soldiers and tanks back towards the woods. She turns her head to see Mermista clutching Sea Hawk’s limp body to her chest. An electric sound comes from the trees and She-Ra ducks just in time to see a blast from a tank arc over her and hit the spot where Mermista was. 

“No!” Adora’s heart drops to her stomach. 

It feels like a punishment when She-Ra lets Adora feel a spike of pain from the hits she has taken. “You must let go.” She-Ra coldly explains in her mind.  Scanning her surroundings, She-Ra looks for areas where she is needed 

“Hey, Adora.” A familiar voice drawls from behind her. 

She-Ra curses herself angrily. Adora’s chest tightens in fear as she remembers the dismembered soldiers still in the water and how she sliced through them without a second thought. “Don’t hurt her,” she pleads with the presence in her mind. 

“Catra,” Adora hears herself, no... she hears  _ She-Ra _ say. Her voice is sharp and uncaring like the sword she carries. Inside, Adora feels mirth radiate from the being. It’s like she is a kid in the Horde who asked a Force Captain a stupid question. Adora knows She-Ra won’t accept or even consider her request. 

Her body turns towards her former friend. The gleam in her heterochromatic eyes shows she’s confident in her plan, but anyone could see that just by the way she holds herself. Catra holds her head high with her chest puffed out and a slight smile gracing her lips as she stalks towards Adora. The look of a perfect Force Captain. 

“Where are your friends?” she taunts, her bottom lip sticking out in mock pity. 

“I’m not in the mood for your games,  _ Catra _ ,” She-Ra grumbles. The pair circle each other, waiting for someone to make the first move. Catra is just waiting for her to slip up so she can strike. 

She-Ra rolls her eyes. “Screw this.” 

She-Ra launches herself at the girl in front of her, trying to tackle her to the ground. Catra is surprised at this move, only dodging her strike at the very last second, leaving She-Ra to falter where she is standing. 

“What the hell?!” Catra shouts.

She-Ra growls, throwing herself at Catra again. This time Catra fights back, unleashing her claws and swiping at She-Ra’s face. She grabs her face where Catra’s sharp claws cut into her cheek. Adora feels the air get punched from her lungs and feels Catra’s knee digging into her ribcage. She-Ra seizes the knee and pulls up, knocking Catra onto her back. 

“Oh, give it up already,” she groans, still recovering from the hit. 

“No. I’m not giving up until the Horde is defeated.” Adora notices her voice sounds almost robotic. Catra’s eyes squint at her.  _ She knows something is wrong, _ Adora thinks to herself. 

“Face it, Adora, you’ve failed!” the girl below her yells. 

Adora looks at the burning kingdom around her.

The other princesses have fallen. Perfuma and Frosta are tied up on the ground next to a parked skiff. Perfuma must have been shocked with a stun baton, her eyes closed. She almost looks peaceful in her paralyzed state; you would think she is asleep, or maybe even meditating. 

Frosta kicks and screams in her restraints, trying to gain some sort of control. Her hands are tied behind her back, preventing her from using her powers on the soldiers. They’ll either be killed or taken as prisoners back to the Fright Zone. 

The tower that once held up the moonstone fell into the ocean with the kingdom’s queen. Adora gasps when she sees the dark, broken, shell of the once-powerful moonstone peeking out of the water. 

“Your precious Brightmoon has fallen under  _ your  _ protection.” Catra taunts, but when Adora looks down, the spot where she was is empty. 

Adora frantically looks around to where she might have gone. She scarcely registers the small sharp points at the top of her back before they dig in, burning all the way down. She-Ra is now doubled over, the attack catching her off guard, and she curses to herself. Catra, however, is relentless with her strikes. Claws swipe at her, clawing She-Ra’s white clothes and golden arm guards. 

Soldiers start to notice the two women fighting and rush to their Force Captain’s aid. Once again, she is outnumbered. She-Ra seems to remember the sword in her hand and hits a soldier in the helmet with the hilt of it. Restraints wrap around her arms and legs, trying to pull her solid stance to the ground but she’s stronger. 

Her body glows golden as she pulls the restraints forward, knocking four soldiers to the ground. The others rush forward but soon fall as the Sword of Protection slices through them. She stands above a pile of broken soldiers watching others closer to the woods retreat when they see her. A hand grabs her shoulder from behind. She-Ra grips the sword with both of her hands and plunges it where the attacker’s stomach should be. 

“Adora…” a broken, familiar voice says behind her. 

A wave of fear washes over her, releasing Adora from She-Ra’s control. She turns her head to look at her former best friend’s face and lets go of the weapon, her She-Ra form disappearing when she meets her eyes. She looks down to see her sword in Catra’s stomach with a dark spot growing on the red Horde uniform. 

Catra falls forward. 

“No, no, no,” Adora mutters to herself as she grips Catra’s shoulders, trying to keep her upright. Tears fill her eyes and she falls to her knees, bringing Catra down with her. 

The woman in her arms yelps in pain. 

“Catra, just hold on, okay? I can fix you.” Adora says as she tries to convince herself, pulling the woman into her lap. “I can fix you” becomes a mantra in her head. Maybe if she repeats it enough, something will happen. 

“Adora, no…” Catra brings her hand up to the side of her face. Adora’s eyebrows draw together as she tries to understand.

“What do you mea-” 

Catra cuts her off. “You can’t transform without the sword.”

She looks between the sword in Catra’s chest and her friend’s face where the pain and blood loss has drained its color. Realizing the situation she has put them in. Her eyes widen in shock and tears roll down her face. 

“Catra-” A sob wracks her body. 

“Shh, it’s okay. It’s better this way,” Catra smiles up at Adora, her breathing becoming more shallow with every passing minute. 

“What? No,” she begs. 

“Adora,” Catra says sternly.

Adora’s mind is frantic, trying to find ways to help but with no success. She-Ra’s sword is stuck in Catra’s stomach, causing her immense pain. Taking it out would make everything worse. Glimmer can’t teleport them out of here. The closest kingdom to here with a leader who hasn’t been taken to be Hordak’s prisoner is Mystacor, but she doesn’t think Catra can make it that far. Even if they could, there is no way Catra would be able to safely jump off of the cliff. 

“Promise me you’ll move on after this.” Adora is ripped from her thoughts, looking down at Catra. 

“I-” Adora shakes her head. “No, I can’t do this without you,” she pleads. 

Catra’s eyes focus, deep in thought. Whatever she has in mind isn't very good, by the looks of it. She looks conflicted and scared. Her tense body goes limp with a sigh. She looks back up at Adora’s face with determination in her eyes. That look brings Adora back to the times when they would be neck and neck in a race or wrestling over a hidden ration bar. 

Catra has always been on the scrawny side, but now limp in her lap with half of a sword hanging out of her chest and breaths becoming raspy, Adora realizes she is just a scared kid, on the older half of seventeen but still so young. They all are just  _ children  _ trying to fix a world that was broken long before their time. 

“Yes, you can,” Catra tells her. “You’ve never needed me.”  _ That’s what she thinks of her? _ Adora’s heart breaks for the girl in her arms. 

“I’ve always needed you.” Another sob rolls through her. 

Catra’s eyes widen and she inhales sharply. Her body tenses in pain and she coughs up blood. When she catches her breath again, Adora’s arms wrap tightly around her. 

Catra looks up at her with despair, knowing the situation unfolding around them and what is to come, but also with something else in her eyes. She takes a deep breath in.

“Adora I-”

\-----

Adora wakes up crying, with her heart pounding in her ears. She sits up from her lying position, but she can’t see anything.

“Catra,'' she cries out, reaching for the spot at the end of her bed, finding it empty and cold. 

“Catra,” she tries again, this time reaching for the bunk above hers. 

She keeps reaching, but her hand never hits the cold metal. Adora opens her finally adjusted eyes and where the flat metal would be is dark fabric sweeping up towards the ceiling. Confused in her half-asleep state, she looks around the rest of the room. 

_ Oh. _

She’s in her room at Brightmoon, it was just a dream. 

She tries to take deep breaths to calm herself as Perfuma had taught her, but is unsuccessful. Being in the walls of Brightmoon only brings back memories of how she got there — Catra’s broken expression in Thaymor and the Catra from her dream that almost died in her arms. 

Adora gets up from her bed and heads to her balcony. The scars on her back hurt from the dream.  _ Maybe some fresh air will help clear my head _ , she thinks. The night is silent except for the crickets chirping in the Whispering Woods. The moonstone shines brightly from its tower, bathing the sleeping kingdom in its soft blue glow. Then, she gets an idea. 

Adora walks back into her room and grabs a chair from her desk. She brings it out onto the balcony and sets it next to the wall connecting her room to the palace roof. The trim is sturdy so, hopefully, it will be strong enough to hold up her weight. Adora uses the chair to help herself climb onto the roof. 

“Woah.” She feels nauseous when she looks down. 

Adora crawls around on her roof until she finds a sturdy area that is not too close to the edge. She can’t help but think of the nights when she and Catra would sneak out onto the roof back in the Fright Zone. They used to talk for hours and hours about nothing and everything at the same time. 

“I wish you were here,” she whispers to herself. 

Adora knows that if she told anyone this, she could be kicked out of the rebellion or even thrown in prison for treason. Glimmer is too close to the fight to think of Adora’s attachments to the other side of the battlefield. The Horde killed her father. The Horde has tried to invade the other kingdoms multiple times, so any of the princesses are out of the question. She definitely can’t go to Catra with any of this. Even while surrounded by so many wonderful people, Adora has never felt more alone. 

But she can’t think like that. She has to be the face of the rebellion and convince neighboring villages to join them. She has to be a strong She-Ra to fix the past mistakes Mara had made, while still building her own legacy and protecting all of Etheria. She  _ needs  _ her new friends to want her around because if they didn’t, she wouldn’t know what to  _ do _ . 

Thoughts and memories like these plague Adora’s mind until the sun can be seen rising from the ocean. She isn’t broken from her trance until she hears a voice.

“Adora?” It’s Bow, from somewhere deep in her room. By the sounds of it, he stumbles into something.

“You can take your hand off of your eyes. I’m still in my pajamas.” She yells to him with a smile. 

He always tries to be respectful of her privacy. It’s nice compared to Glimmer who is used to teleporting anywhere she desires, but Bow always seems to find something to stumble into. She hopes Glimmer isn’t with him. She doesn’t think she can look at her without thinking of her dream.

“Where are you?” Bow questions sounding closer to the balcony. 

“I’m out here!” She calls out. 

Bow walks out onto her balcony and whips his head around to find her. 

“You turned invisible?!?” He says, panicking.

“No, Bow, I’m up here.” She rolls her eyes and leans towards the edge of the roof. 

“Ohhh… How did you-” Adora looks over to the chair next to the wall and back to Bow.

“Oh,” he says and climbs up onto the chair. 

Adora crawls over to help him up. Anyone else would have struggled to pull up his weight but when Adora is not being forced to “relax”, her free time is spent training, so lifting Bow is like lifting a sack of potatoes. 

“Where's Glimmer?” she asks him, thinking of all the times her limited hours of sleep have been rudely interrupted by the pair.

“I was going to let her sleep in today but I got bored and I know you’re always up at the crack of dawn,” He studies her face, probably noticing the dark bags under Adora’s eyes. “I wasn’t expecting you to be on the roof, though.”

“Yeah,” Adora looks down at her hands embarrassedly, “The roof was always a safe spot in the Fright Zone.” 

She feels bad for bringing up the Horde to Bow but she also knows there is not a kinder person to be sharing this with. Unlike Glimmer, Bow is more likely to see past a person's affiliations and straight to their heart. His faith in her is part of the reason she is even in Brightmoon. 

“What was the Fright Zone like growing up?” He seems hesitant with his question. 

Adora takes a deep breath, “It wasn't all bad... Sure, I learned all the ways to use a knife by the age of 7 and easy ways to disable a larger attacker by the time I was 12, but there were good parts.” 

She looks back at Bow, who nods encouragingly. 

“My squadron was probably the best part,” she admits to him with a soft smile.

“There was Rogelio, a mute lizard person. His main communication to us was through various growls and roars. He was very useful in training simulations since he was the strongest of all of us.” 

Adora remembers the times when she and Rogelio would spar against each other. They were good fights, too, pinning the two physically strongest cadets in the squadron against each other. 

“Then there was Kyle-” 

“That’s the blond scrawny one who was my guard in the Fright Zone.” 

Adora laughs at this. “Yeah, he has always been scrawny. He was never any good at fighting or really anything productive for the Horde-” Bow side-eyes her. Since he and Perfuma had started hanging out, he’s been all about lifting each other up and speaking positively. “-but as much as you can in the Fright Zone, I know he loved all of us like family.” A smile returns to his face. 

“Next would be Lonnie. She was always a very good soldier. Very strong and always a good sport even after being beat in a simulation. She, Rogelio, and Kyle were always pretty close growing up. We always had bets on which ones of the three would pair up.” Bows eyebrows scrunch together as he tries to figure out who “we” was but Adora doesn’t notice. 

“Finally, there was Catra.” 

“Wait-” Bow cuts her off. “Like the Catra who tries to kill us every other day?” 

Adora lets out a sigh. “Yeah, that Catra.” 

Bow’s eyebrows scrunch together, connecting what Adora had said to what he has lived through. He signals Adora to continue with a nod. 

_ Bow’s not going to tell anyone. He knows how to see the good in people, _ she reminds herself. She takes a deep breath and continues. 

“Catra was my best friend in the Horde. We did basically everything together, from running laps in training to sharing a bunk. She was the one who actually found our spot on the roof,” she grins, remembering her tiny hands clinging tightly to the wall of the grimy metal building while climbing up for the first time. 

“You miss her.” Bow states. 

Adora nods, looking down at her hands so she doesn’t have to see Bow’s reaction. 

“What would you do if it was you and Glimmer on opposite sides of a war?” she asks, trying to get him to understand. “And she keeps making bad decisions and you know deep down she’s a good person, but she’s just too stubborn to listen to you.” 

“That sounds like Glimmer,” Bow says with a grin, and then goes quiet.

Adora turns her head to see his face, his eyes wide in disbelief,  _ really  _ taking in her situation. 

“I would do anything to get her back.” he ultimately says.

They both sit in silence, looking down at Brightmoon below them, watching the guards change out and Angella on her morning stroll through the gardens. 

“Tell me more?” Bow asks her, pulling her out of her thoughts.

“What do you want to know?” she says hesitantly.

“Anything,” he kindly smiles at her. 

“Well,” she smiles, “her favorite number is-”

The two sit up on the roof talking for hours, or at least until Glimmer wakes up. Adora still misses Catra, but it's nice to have someone to talk to about her with. Bow even adds things that he and Glimmer did when they were kids. It’s weirdly similar to she and Catra’s childhood but with their own princessy twist. 

The roof of the castle becomes a comforting space for Adora, going up after nightmares or nights when she has too much energy to sleep. Only Bow knows about it but only climbs up when she is needed somewhere in the castle. 

She likes to think that Catra is sitting in their old spot back in the Fright Zone. Looking up at the same sky as her, maybe even smiling when she thinks of her. She wishes Catra was here, of course she does. But until then, the sights of bustling Brightmoon beneath her and the sparkling ocean fill the empty space next to her. 

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo.... Did I make you cry? 
> 
> Please leave a comment if you liked it <3
> 
> Come yell at me on Tumblr or Instagram: madimoo31


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